The Enlightened Prince and the Wise General
by Allekha
Summary: In the aftermath of the siege on Ba Sing Se, a soldier testifies on his conversations with the enemy General Iroh. Outsider POV on Iroh during the war.


A/N: Written for cricket_aria for Trick or Treat 2015.

* * *

In the aftermath of the siege on Ba Sing Se, there was much to be done. The walls were still intact, but needed repairs; the surrounding countryside was damaged and would not bear grain this year. Many people had been sheltered within the walls but did not ordinarily live there, and they were anxious to return to their homes and begin repairs.

The Earth King thus had much to worry about, and he spent his days in endless meetings looking over endless plans and halting endless arguments.

One thing in particular was causing everyone to lose sleep, and that was the exact circumstances over the Fire Nation's retreat and what it meant. In the weeks after the end of the siege, there was ceaseless speculation, buoyed by eyewitness reports. The Earth King, tired of the rumors he could hear whispered in every corner, ordered that soldiers who had been captured, and were now freed, should give formal testimony so they could get to the bottom of the matter once and for all.

The first man his military leaders brought forth was one who had actually spent time with the fearsome General Iroh, according to reports. Everyone was eager to hear his story, and after the requisite recording of name and rank and other formalities, the room fell quiet. The officer began to speak.

"General Iroh was... not what I expected. I had heard of his reputation – I had seen him myself, on the field of battle, more than once before I was captured. He earned that title, 'The Dragon of the West'. I never saw soldiers tremble quite like they did the first time we saw him breathing fire."

He sighed. "I digress. When my unit was captured, I was separated from the rest of the soldiers due to my rank. The way I was treated was not especially pleasant in any sense, but I was given respect, and neither I nor my soldiers were given the disgraceful treatment reported by veterans of other battles. I was given a sufficient amount of food, and the guards were professional and made no ill comment towards me."

"How did you come to meet General Iroh?"

"The first time I met General Iroh in person was several days into my captivity. When the guards took me from my holdings to meet him, I confess that I had no idea what to expect. I thought he might try to bribe me into becoming an agent for his side, or otherwise attempt to pry information from me, and I was determined to spill no such secrets. Or, I thought, perhaps he meant to taunt me in some way, to glory in his progress in his siege on Ba Sing Se."

He paused here, looking vaguely troubled, until one impatient witness called out, "So how was he, then?"

The officer closed his eyes for a moment, then continued. "It was neither of those things, or any other that I had imagined. First, the general offered me tea and spoke for a few minutes about the difficulty of receiving good quality leaves in the supply shipments. Tea is an interest of mine also, and by that point in the siege, it was starting to become scarce behind the walls. So I engaged him in this conversation topic for several minutes, though I kept on my guard. After we had finished our cups, he asked me about my accommodations, and then reassured me that my men were being treated well. I told him I had no way of believing that, and when we had finished speaking, my guards first took me to see that my men were, indeed, not suffering, before I was returned to my own confinement."

"You talked about tea," one of the generals said flatly.

The officer shook his head. "During the second visit, we talked about poetry. During the third, he asked me questions about Earth Kingdom culture. Not, usually, about things that were in any way secret – and when I refused to answer something because it could potentially be sensitive information, he took it with grace, if also disappointment. Instead of pressing or threatening me, he moved on to a more neutral topic. He would ask about things like festivals, how we celebrate the equinox or the new year. Or, for example, the kinds of stories that were important to us or the sports that were popular. In particular, he eventually, after I had made enough clarifications on the subject, began to ask about cultural differences within the Kingdom itself.

"In return, he would tell me about the Fire Nation. Occasionally, he would even tell me personal stories about, say, vacations he had spent with his son, his nephew, and his niece. But more often, our conversations were about things like tea culture and the education system."

He paused again, and a quiet chatter rose. "Interesting," another general commented.

"It seems he was trying to gain your trust," said another man. "An unusual method, though."

"Quiet," the Earth King called, and the room went still. "Continue," he commanded. "It seems like you talked with him quite a bit."

The officer inclined his head. "These conversations we had were not long – General Iroh was, of course, a busy man – and they were not frequent, but I was a prisoner for enough time that we managed to have many of them. Primarily, it was just the two of us, but on a few occasions I also met his son, Lu Ten. I knew that his son was responsible for some of the worst attacks we had survived along the wall. However, in person, sitting at the same table, he was a polite young man."

"But what did you think of the general?"

The officer spoke more slowly, with deliberate care. "We had always painted the general as a monster. And yes, because of him, many lives were lost. I do not deny these facts. Because of his actions and tactics, I have had to send far too many letters to the relatives of dead soldiers. I have watched men die terribly painful deaths." Here he paused, apparently waiting for an interruption, but when none was forthcoming, he took a deep breath and continued.

"After meeting him, though, I cannot believe that he took especial pleasure in these things. Rather, he saw them as the facts of war, in the same way that we accept that we have to kill people who also have family and friends waiting for them back home. That, or we elide that fact and try to forget it. General Iroh was not only polite to me, but he was clearly well-read and cultured, and he did not see us in the Earth Kingdom as simple barbarians. He saw or came to see that we, too, had a culture, and one that varied from place to place, just as it did in his own homeland. I believe that he saw us as a people to be respected; in one of our final conversations, he made an admiring comment about our resilience."

Again voices rose, this time more loudly. Some were in protest, but there were more than a few arguing about what this could _mean_ if it were true. The Earth King let the speculation run for a while, sitting and looking contemplative himself, until eventually the din died down and the officer was free to continue his testimony.

"The last time I met with him, he looked out of sorts from his usual self, and seemed distracted. He told me that in a few days I, along with the rest of my unit, would be released and would be free to return to our posts." He looked slightly sheepish. "I will admit, I actually felt some concern for him, after talking to him so many times, and eventually asked what had happened. He told me that his son was dead. He told me that he had seen that to continue his siege on Ba Sing Se was a futility. He told me that he now had many things to think about. And true to his word, we were released. None of my unit had come to particular harm, though several had fallen ill from the close quarters."

Murmuring broke out, but this time the Earth King only had to look around the room to quiet it. "Your conclusion, soldier?" one of the generals called.

The officer stood a little more straight. "General Iroh was in every way a contrast to what our intelligence reports on his father and his brother. He is not cruel. He is intelligent, but not conceited. It is fortunate for us that he is the next in line for the throne. Azulon grows old in his palace. General Iroh is a man whom we can reason with. When that day comes, perhaps our two nations will once again be able to speak in words, not just in earth and fire."

The court recorder quirked a bit of a smile as she took the words down in shorthand. Once the officer confirmed he had nothing further to state, he was dismissed. "Bring in the next witness," the Earth King ordered, and the next man was fetched; in the gap between, though, the air was thick with thoughts and argument, and perhaps for the first time in years, a tentative kind of hope.


End file.
